Hi,
My very old small top loader has finally given up on me and I am looking at buying a second hand replacement. I've been looking at a cromartie hobby tech 40 with a sitter, and the seller says it will fire to 1260 cone 7-8 I use, on 13amp plug, but I've seen someone else blog that working it out technically such a kiln will never reach stoneware.
Can anyone advise me whether this kiln will really reach stoneware regularly, it's all I fire to? Or whether the person is correct and it is a theoretical temperature of 1300 that is achievable but not what will happen in the real world. I don't want to buy a white elephant. Thanks

I had an interesting idea today and that was to sprinkle sand on my freshly thrown pieces to add some interesting designs. My teacher is going to try in the older kiln since it doesn't matter as much if it does something bad. However that kiln can only get as high as cone 6. I was wondering though if maybe the sand will melt possibly. I don't have any specific details about the sand except that its high in silica. Has anyone had any experience with this yet? Any suggestion would be appreciated.

I have a big sale coming up this weekend and I put the last bisque load in yesterday afternoon. I come into the studio today to find the kiln reading Error 1. This is a Skutt kiln model km-1227 firing a bisque load to cone 04. This error is about the ramping up rate being less than 12 degrees per hour. Possible causes include large load which isn't the case, and issues with either the relays, elements, or voltage. Normally, I would just call the kiln repair man, but he was here in July fixing this kiln. The issue then was the electrical plug. It had some discoloration around one of the prongs, and he re-wired and replaced the whole plug section. I also had an electrician come out and check the wall wiring and outlet to make sure the problem was isolated in the kiln plug, which it was. The wall wiring is fine. The kiln has been running about twice a week since the repair just fine. The other issue is that our power had been out all morning before I turned the kiln on.
Questions:
1) would a power outage cause the kiln to sense low voltage?
2) do you think the issue is with the wiring or is it just ANOTHER issue with the same kiln that happened to pop up right after the first issue?
3) Am I correct in assuming trying to re-run the kiln will result in the same error or create a bigger problem?
Most importantly:
4) Will the load be underfired and need to be fired again? Or do you think it's okay to glaze? I have no idea what temp it was at when the error occured and it's still too hot to open and look at.
My other kiln is doing glaze loads all week and if I need to re-fire I will not get this entire kiln load done in time for the sale.
Thanks!!!

Hi All,
I received some great advice from the members of this forum for my first Raku fire and wanted so show some of the results. If fired the kiln twice, once as a test with sample items and once with my work which was more successful. The video is of the second firing (although I did upload the first to YouTube as well, I learned a lot from it). It is not very long and shows the completed work at the end.
I used a combination of glazes that I prepared from recipes from the internet and books as well as some pre-mixed Laguna glazes. I made the kiln from an old Paragon kiln I found for $50 off of a site similar to Craigslist.
Again thanks for the great Raku Input.
Ian Cook

Hi all,
I haven't been able to find any firing instructions for my old AIM kiln. Even the folks at AIM said they didn't have any . So I'm left with power dials that go from 1 to 10, and no idea how that translates into temperature. I'd like to be able to test this kiln without spending money on a temperature gauge/controller only to discover that what I really need is a new kiln. I have a bunch of different low fire cones, and was thinking of using them as a visual guide for reaching temperatures, but the more I think about it the more I imagine endless permutations of dial-adjustments matched to cone-slumps and time-monitoring. Am I crazy to think I could do a ramp/soak firing without having even a temperature gauge?
Thanks,
Matt

I am building a wood kiln it his year in Cassville Wisconsin. I have 30 plus years of firing with wood and building kilns. If you would like to be involved with this kiln at any level please let me know. I'll need people to help build and fire so whatever rings your bell there is an opportunity for you. If this sounds interesting contact me at kbichell@gmail.com. Also visit the kiln progress web site at http://thekilnproject.com/kiln-progress.html . I'll look forward to hearing from you.
.....Ken Bichell

Hello!
I am new to the forums and I am very new to ceramics and the more technical side like developing glazes, clay bodies, ect.
That said, I am interested in cookware. I want to find a formula for a clay body that will be able to withstand repeated use at high temperatures, as well as being used over direct flame and heat.
If I am posting this in the wrong category please forgive me.
Any information at all is helpful because at the moment I have none.
Thanks!

Occasionally I need to burn up some brush, dead fall, etc. I thought why waste a perfectly good fire! These two pieces made from raku clay and bisqued at 04 electric. I coated them with some copper based raku glaze. While I was piling up the brush, I just placed these two pieces in the middle of the pile and lit it. I then spent the next couple of hours running around the yard for more deadfall to keep the fire going.
I got the pieces hot enough to melt the glaze and got a pretty good workout at the same time. Next time I'll try to have more burn stuff piled ready to go.
The are the results!

Hello, I am still having big problems with the kiln I own. Long story short, it has been broken now for about 2-3 months. First off one of the relays fried itself. So I replace that. Then it fired twice, one bisque and a cone 9-10 glaze.
After that it broke again with the controller spitting out an Error F1. No manuals or manufacturers known for either the kiln or programer. Looked again at the wiring and the wire attached to the top relay has fried, half of the coating had burnt off and it was getting very hot. This is probably what broke the relay in the first place but I didn't notice. It is on the wire where the electricity exits the elements. The top circuit has 6 elements wired in parallel pairs.
Replaced the wire and it was still getting very hot. This time where the elements come out the kiln it was starting to glow and spark which I had never noticed before. So it is not the relay or the wire that is causing the problem it must be the elements right?
The problem is I know little about electronics and the guy who I share the studio with knows even less.
He had an electrician come over to look at the kiln. Problem was I wasn't there and he doesn't really know what the electrician has done. I am sure he is good at his job but I have no idea what he has done with the wiring. I mean it looks like he has changed the bottom into a series circuit and the top, well I have no idea how it is meant to work.
Here is my attempt at working out how he has wired the top elements, to me this makes no sense but please correct me if I am wrong. They are two drawing of the same circuit.
I spent most of yesterday trying to work out and design a circuit that will work. The elements look ok to me but maybe they are causing the problem. I just don't know. I know one guy who fixes kilns and replaces elements but he is very slow at getting round to doing anything
I took some amp and resistance readings from the kiln to try and work out what the overall resistance is. The kiln consists of two relays, the bottom one has four elements wired in parallel pairs and the top 6. 10 elements in total. Is this the right way to have it wired up? The power comes in bottom left and right and out the middle pins.
So I started with what the ideal circuit should be. I have 240v supply at 32amp, which means my overall resistance should be 7.5ohm.
Overall the top elements have resistance of 11.6 and the bottom elements a resistance of 10 (one top element has 17ohm and one bottom elements has 10ohm). This makes the overall resistance of the circuit 5.4ohm as the elements are wired up in parallel.
Ok so that is the resistance for the circuit but just taking in elements resistance values so probably not that correct. If I use the amp reading that I am getting going to and from the relays I end up with a value of 7.07ohm for the overall resistance which is a lot closer to my ideal value.
After all of that I am not really any closer. The top relay has an amp reading of 18.5 and the bottom relay 15.5. I think I worked out that if my ideal resistance was 7.5 then I should have an amp reading of 18.75 for the top and 12.5 for the bottom. I am a bit confused on reading back my working out now haha.
I have just noticed that 18.5+15.5 = 34 but I am sure we have a 32amp breaker which doesn't make any sense either.
So none of the values seem that wrong although I may have completely done the maths wrong, I mean the bottom seems to have too many amps but it is not the bottom that is broken. Those elements seem to be working fine. The top where the electricity exits the elements to go to the relay is where the problem is happening.
Anyway if you have read this far, thank you I don't know if anybody can help but could you at least tell me if the parallel pairs is the correct way for elements to be wired up? Can anybody spot where the fault may lie? I don't want to replace the elements if that is not going to help either! I have just been slowly replacing and breaking more things.